Movies: The Not So "Amazing" Spider-Man

Andrew Garfield pondering the mask that brings the cash

BY NATHANIEL ROGERS

YOUR FEATURE PRESENTATION

Déjà vu  is an unsettling feeling. You can’t quite place the why and whens of it but you know you’ve experienced whatever this is before. Not so with the reboot of Spider-Man which has been optimistically retitled “THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN” for 2012.  The new webslinging film arrives only five years after Spider-Man 3, that final sour note in Sam Raimi’s otherwise sweet trilogy. This déjà vu iseasy to place with the “whens” and thus less unsettling if still perplexing on account of the “whys”. We’re back to summer 2002 when Peter Parker first pined for a high school sweetheart, first indirectly contributed to his uncle’s murder, first learned that with great power comes great responsibility, and first swung around a big screen Manhattan in his iconic red and blue spandex.
 
Franchises are the comfort food of the movies and though there’s nothing wrong with comfort food beyond its lack of nutritional value, so much depends on the delivery when it comes to the familiar pleasure. The Amazing Spider-Man spins its title card with webbing very swiftly which leaves you hoping for a zippy entertainment with key twists on the mythos to keep you engaged. But after a new corporate thriller prologue featuring Peter Parker’s heretofore unseen parents the movie settles into excessively familiar story beats. We’re forced to wait out the entire numbing origin story again and relive many story beats from the 2002 origin story, with the only major exclusions being the absence of Parker's employment at The Daily Bugle (weird) and no James Franco shaped obstacle to his girl’s affections. Other than that only the names of the major characters have changed: Blonde Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone) stands in for Redhead Mary Jane Watson (Kirsten Dunst) as the love interest Peter likes to photograph; Dr Curt Connors/The Lizard (Rhys Ifans) stands in for Norman Osborne/The Green Goblin (Willem Dafoe) as the scientist Peter looks up to whose illegal human experimentation (on himself!) wreaks havoc on his mental stability and turns him into an ugly green baddie.

MORE AFTER THE JUMP

Andrew Garfield Gets Sticky in a 4-Minute Spider-Man Preview: VIDEO

Andrew Garfield shows off more of his Spidey skills than we've seen thus far in a new mega-preview for the upcoming Amazing Spider-Man extravaganza.

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Andrew Garfield in 'Vman'

Spider-Man's Andrew Garfield spins a web of bedroom eyes in the new issue of Vman.

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Ellen Checks for Bulges on Andrew Garfield's Spidey Suit: VIDEO

Andrew Garfield stopped in to Ellen yesterday and had an extensive conversation about being naked under his Spidey suit. As you may recall, the Spidey suit was de-sexed. Though that didn't stop paparazzi from getting shots of his "keister".

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The Amazing Spider-Man: TRAILER

The full trailer for the upcoming The Amazing Spider Man 3-D starring Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone has hit the web, and features a new look at Peter Parker's parents, a lizard villain, and a sequence atop a New York skyscraper. With a new director, Marc Webb, what think you, Sam Raimi fans?

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Andrew Garfield: Spidey Suit De-Sexed

Entertainment Weekly takes a closer look at Andrew Garfield's spandex Spidey suit:

When asked if there were long conversations about whether to err on the side of being too Ken-doll androgynous vs. too bulbously revealing (especially since the film is in 3-D!), Garfield laughed and blushed some more.

“Um, yeah, there are long discussions about this stuff,” he said. “There has to be because it’s got to be handled with sensitivity. It has to be non-offensive, which takes some tools.” His words, not mine. We assume he’s talking about tools of the costume-design variety.

Ever since the nippled Batsuit brouhaha of the ’90s, the makers of superhero movies have to be careful not to offend audience’s delicate sensibilities when it comes to their crimefighter’s naughty bits. They should be more focused on Thor’s hammer than… Thor’s hammer. Garfield says he and Webb were cautious about this. ”I don’t think it should be the main attraction of the costume.” he said. “I don’t think it should be what people are focusing on.” In other words, keep it classy.

Garfield's 'crouch' is another story.

And Deadline reports that Garfield is headed to Broadway in a Mike Nichols revival of the Arthur Miller play Death of a Salesman:

Oscar-winning actor Philip Seymour Hoffman will play the traveling salesman Willy Loman; Linda Emond will play his wife, Linda; and Garfield will play Loman's underachieving son, Biff. Scott Rudin will produce the revival, which will open next March at the Barrymore Theatre.